The police officer who ran after alleged drug lord Kerwin Espinosa expressed dismay over the dismissal of criminal charges against the drug personality and fellow accused Peter Lim.

Chief Insp. Jovie Espenido, Ozamiz City police director, raised the possibility on Tuesday that the Philippine National Police (PNP) did not submit Espinosa’s testimonies given during a Senate hearing.

Espenido was the chief of police of Albuera, Leyte, where Espinosa’s father Rolando Sr. was mayor. The police officer arrested Rolando Sr. and filed drug charges against him and Espinosa.

“Kung matandaan natin, he (Espinosa) admitted noon that he is a drug lord sa Senate. Sa Senate sinabi niya yun, may transcript diyan,” he said in an interview with dzMM.

The Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) did not include the confession of Kerwin Espinosa before the Senate when the police filed charges against him and other drug personalities, Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II said Wednesday.

Aguirre made the disclosure amid an uproar after the National Prosecution Service (NPS) of the Department of Justice dismissed the drug charges against Espinosa, alleged drug lord Peter Lim and 20 others due to “weak evidence.”

On Nov. 23, 2016, Espinosa read a sworn statement during a Senate hearing and admitted that he had engaged in the drug trade. He narrated how he started in the business and identified his drug sources, including his alleged protectors in the Philippine National Police.

The justice secretary said it was not the obligation of prosecutors to listen to the Senate hearings for them to consider the statements done by the high-profile drug suspects.

He advised the CIDG to get a copy of Espinosa’s confession before the Senate, as well as the testimonies of other drug personalities, and file this when they submit a motion for reconsideration to review the drug case.

On Tuesday, Aguirre set up a new panel of prosecutors that would handle the motion for reconsideration to review the decision of the first panel. /cbb

Reacting to the outrage over the exoneration of high-profile drug kingpins, President Rodrigo Duterte questioned the findings of state prosecutors that the evidence against the suspects was weak, presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said on Tuesday night.

“I will invoke my power of supervision and control and will review the dismissal,” Roque quoted Mr. Duterte as saying, as the presidential spokesperson provided social media updates on a joint command conference in Malacañang.

Mr. Duterte told Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II that the latter would take the places of Cebu businessman Peter Lim and confessed drug trader Kerwin Espinosa if the two would go scot-free, Roque said.

The President also asked why the admission in Congress, in apparent reference to Espinosa, was not admitted as evidence.

A Department of Justice (DOJ) panel of prosecutors threw out the complaint against Lim, Espinosa and several others, saying the evidence presented by the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group was weak.

New DOJ panel

The DOJ panel added that the testimony of the lone witness, Marcelo Adorco, had “inconsistencies.”

Roque also said on social media that Aguirre had formed a new investigation panel to review the case against Lim and Espinosa.

He also said the Philippine National Police would ask the DOJ to reconsider the ruling of prosecutors dismissing the case against Espinosa and Lim.

Malacañang said it was concerned with the exoneration of the high-profile drug lords and vowed not to let the big fish get away if there was evidence against them.

Roque said the Palace understood the public’s “sentiments and frustration” over the dismissal of the drug trafficking complaint.

The dismissal came in the wake of the killing of thousands of low-level drug suspects in police operations or by vigilantes.

While the exoneration of the high-profile drug suspects drew criticism, it was welcomed by Lim.

Peter Lim thanks DOJ

The suspected drug lord expressed thanks to the DOJ “for rendering a just resolution because after all, the pronouncement of Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II, which found headline in Cebu Daily News on Oct 1, 2016, is correct.”

Aguirre said the resolution issued by a DOJ panel—composed of Assistant State Prosecutors Michael John Humarang and Aristotle Reyes—would be subjected to review “either by a motion for reconsideration, or ultimately, by way of automatic review by my office.”

Aguirre said it was too early for Lim and his fellow respondents to claim victory.

Weak evidence

In one of his early moves in the drug war, Mr. Duterte named Lim as one of the people behind the illegal narcotics trade in the Visayas and threatened to kill him.

“The moment he lands at [the airport], he will die,” he said of Lim, who had been frequently flying to China.

Lim denied the allegation when he was granted a meeting with Mr. Duterte, his wedding compadre (cosponsor).

Aside from Lim and Espinosa, also absolved were convicted drug lord Peter Co, Adorco, Lovely Impal, Max Miro, Ruel Malindangan, Jun Pepito and several others known only by their aliases.

Refile cases

Like Espinosa, Co testified in a legislative inquiry linking detained Sen. Leila de Lima to the narcotics trade.

Espinosa and his employee Adorco also named Lim as the main source of the illegal drugs they had sold in Eastern Visayas.

Roque said the police could refile the cases and introduce new evidence that would be enough to sustain a conviction.

“The President’s promise is if the evidence is lacking, we will submit more; and if there are shenanigans, we will punish those responsible,” he said in a press briefing. – With a report from Ador Vincent S. Mayol

Senators slammed on Tuesday the move by state prosecutors to clear suspected drug lords Kerwin Espinosa and Peter Lim from drug charges, warning that the administration’s war on drugs would be adversely affected.

They expressed hope that Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II would reverse the dismissal of the drug trafficking charges.

But Vice President Leni Robredo wondered whether the Department of Justice (DOJ) still deserved to be trusted by the public.

Robredo said the decision of a DOJ panel of prosecutors to dismiss the charges against Espinosa and Lim was frightening.

“First of all, because one of them is a confessed drug pusher. In fact, one of them is a witness against Senator [Leila] de Lima who is saying they gave her money out of drugs. What does that say?” she told reporters.

Congressional inquiry

Robredo was referring to Espinosa, who claimed during a congressional inquiry that he had given millions of pesos to De Lima through her former driver Ronnie Dayan during her time as justice secretary.

De Lima has been detained at a Philippine National Police facility in Camp Crame since February last year due to drug-related charges, which she calls “politically motivated and trumped-up.”

Sen. Richard Gordon, whose blue ribbon committee investigated the allegations against Espinosa, also wondered why the administration was waging an antidrug war “only to dismiss” the cases of big fish.

Gordon noted that during the Senate inquiry last year, Espinosa testified he was into the illegal drug trade, admitted to giving protection money to someone and narrated his life in prison where he had made drug deals.

Advice to Mr. Duterte

Espinosa, Lim and several others were absolved by a DOJ panel of prosecutors due to the alleged weak evidence presented by the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) and the “inconsistencies” in the testimony of its lone witness, Marcelo Adorco, who was also cleared of the charges.

The resolution was issued on Dec. 20, 2017, but the media came to know about it only on Monday.

Gordon said President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs would be hurt if the matter was not resolved properly. “I am advising the President … that he should look into this right away.”

Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon doubted that Aguirre had not been informed by the DOJ panel of its decision to drop the charges against Lim and Espinosa.

“Having said that, the President should review this, because the Office of the President has supervision and control over all Cabinet secretaries,” Drilon told reporters.

Senators Grace Poe, Bam Aquino and Antonio Trillanes IV were convinced that the DOJ panel should have established probable cause to indict Espinosa and Lim for illegal drug trafficking.

Sen. Panfilo Lacson said Espinosa at the least should have been charged based on the evidence that was presented in the Senate inquiry.

Perplexing

Poe said she was “disturbed” by the basis used by the DOJ panel in recommending the dismissal of the charges.

“How a confessed drug lord like Kerwin Espinosa can be exonerated by the State, is perplexing. It reflects the sloppiness of the police’s investigation and case buildup against these drug lords,” Poe said in a statement.

“Is the prosecution really searching for evidence?” she asked.

For his part, Trillanes said the dropping of charges against the two suspected drug lords showed that Mr. Duterte’s war on drugs was fake.

“If the person is poor, no more questions are asked and he is killed immediately,” Trillanes said in a statement.

‘Fake war’

“If the persons involved are drug lords and they are the compadre (wedding cosponsor) of Mr. Duterte, due process is observed and they are absolved.”

Trillanes also noted that De Lima, a vocal critic of the President, ended up being charged in court even if the scripted testimony against her was all tangled.

The Liberal Party (LP) also took the line of Trillanes.

“If Kerwin Espinosa is not involved in drugs, then what reason remains for him to bribe Sen. Leila de Lima, as he claimed in his testimony? What reason remains for Senator De Lima to be in jail,” the LP said in a statement.

The political party said De Lima was innocent of the illegal drug charges filed by the government against her.

Justice for a few

The exoneration of suspected drug lords has cast doubt on the administration’s antidrug war, Aquino said.

“Justice is only for a few and not for each Filipino,” he said in a statement.

Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto said the dropping of the charges was a “blow to government credibility in its antidrug operations.”

Sen. Win Gatchalian said the turn of events was a “big setback in achieving a drug-free society in our country.”

Drug list unreliable

Magdalo Rep. Gary Alejano noted that the basis of the alleged involvement of Espinosa and his father, the slain Albuera, Leyte Mayor Rolando Espinosa, in the illegal drug trade was Mr. Duterte’s drug list.

Thus, he said, the DOJ’s dismissal of the complaint due to lack of evidence “is short of admitting that the drug list of Duterte is unfounded and unreliable.”

Alejano also slammed the hypocrisy of the administration drug war. “Big-time drug lords are acquitted, while poor small-time drug users face death at an instant. This is supposedly how the ‘justice’ system works under the Duterte administration,” he said.

Like Alejano, Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman said the dismissal of charges against Espinosa and Lim demonstrated the administration’s policy of selectiveness in implementing the law.

“The policy of the Duterte administration is to liberate drug lords and liquidate small fry,” he told a news conference.

Akbayan Rep. Tom Villarin, speaking at the same forum, said it was time to release De Lima.

“What is sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose. Senator De Lima has spent a year in detention even without a formal trial. If this is what happens, all the more the need to release the good senator,” he said.

The dismissal of the criminal case against high-profile drug kingpin Peter Lim and other alleged narcotics bosses has put the Department of Justice (DOJ) in a bind in a similar complaint involving detained Sen. Leila de Lima, former Solicitor General Florin Hilbay said on Tuesday.

Hilbay, one of the lawyers for De Lima, lamented how the DOJ treated the two complaints differently although they both involved alleged violations of Republic Act No. 9165, or the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.

In July 2016, President Duterte tagged Lim, who turned out to be his wedding compadre (cosponsor), as the biggest drug lord in the country.

“The DOJ applied the basic rules to confessed drug lords [but] created new rules and waived all legal doctrines with respect to someone who has been politically persecuted,” Hilbay told the Inquirer, referring to De Lima.

Rules changed

“This shows the political character of the war on drugs,” he said. “They bent the rules and drafted new rules just to justify De Lima’s detention. That is what’s fundamentally wrong in this war on drugs.”

The DOJ brought drug charges against De Lima after she, as chair of the Senate committee on justice and human rights, opened an inquiry into the thousands of alleged extrajudicial killings in President Duterte’s war on drugs.

Mr. Duterte’s allies in the Senate, however, stripped De Lima of the leadership of the committee and gave it to Sen. Richard Gordon, under whom the inquiry found no extrajudicial killings in the drug war.

De Lima incurred the ire of the President for investigating in 2009, as chair of the Commission on Human Rights, alleged killings by a death squad of suspected criminals in Davao when Mr. Duterte was mayor of the city.

‘Bogus’ drug war

Hilbay said the junking of the drug-trafficking case filed by the Philippine National Police Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) last year also showed that Mr. Duterte’s crackdown on the narcotics trade, which had claimed the lives of thousands of mostly poor suspects, was “bogus.”

Espinosa and Co, who had been serving time at the state penitentiary in Muntinlupa City, both testified that De Lima collected protection money from the illegal drug trade while she was the justice secretary, an allegation the senator denies.

No corpus delicti

Hilbay pointed out that the DOJ prosecutors also faulted the CIDG for its failure to present the narcotics that the drug kingpins allegedly traded as the corpus delicti (evidence proving the crime) to be used against them.

Hilbay said the DOJ “conveniently” overlooked this basic legal principle in prosecuting drug cases in its recommendation to indict De Lima.

In fact, he said, the DOJ’s three separate resolutions against De Lima did not even mention the type of illegal drugs that the senator allegedly traded in conspiracy with convicted drug lords.

“In the case of the drug lords identified by the President himself, they decided to apply the basic rule requiring [the submission] of corpus delicti as evidence of the crime,” Hilbay said.

“In the case of De Lima, there’s no [confiscated illegal drugs presented as evidence]. But she has been in pretrial detention for over a year now,” he stressed.

The former solicitor general said the defense raised that legal issue in the motion for reconsideration it filed in the Supreme Court seeking a reversal of the tribunal’s decision that upheld the legality of De Lima’s detention.

Have any studies been done in states that have legalized marijuana? How much tax revenue has been generated? Have there been more traffic accidents? More minors indulging? In short, has it been successful?

Eric

Cecil replies:

I’d say the market for studies on marijuana legalization is currently about as hot as the market for, say, late-night gas-station taquitos in the greater Denver area: i.e., torrid. Much as the public craves results, though, the fact remains that legalized recreational weed is just a few years old in the handful of states that allow it. Data’s coming in steadily, but it’s preliminary, and therefore wide open to interpretation.

Your traffic-accident query is a good example of how far into the weeds one can get here. Take Colorado, where recreational marijuana has been legal the longest — since 2012, officially, though business really started booming in 2014 with the advent of licensed retail outlets. According to analysis by the Denver Post, the number of drivers there who died in car crashes with THC in their systems more than doubled between 2013 and 2016.

OK, that doesn’t sound great. But in context it’s not so clear. For one, crash fatalities in Colorado (and in Washington, another legalization state) over roughly this period have remained in line with stats from control states where marijuana remains outlawed, per 2017 research in the American Journal of Public Health. And multiple earlier studies had previously found reduced traffic fatalities following the passage of state medical-marijuana laws.

And two, the relationship between THC and impairment remains poorly understood, even down to establishing intoxication — as anyone who’s nervously awaited a drug test will tell you, THC metabolites linger in the bloodstream long after the high has worn off. (Chugging grapefruit juice doesn’t mask those metabolites, by the way, if anyone’s still claiming it does.) We’ve had decades to observe how alcohol degrades one’s skills behind the wheel; far less time to assess the intersection of driving and weed use.

For the moment, though, what we’ve got is data to confirm anyone’s preexisting prejudices. Opposed to recreational marijuana? Legalization’s made the roads deadlier. In favor? Plenty of evidence suggests that’s not really happening. This was a provisional conclusion offered in a 2016 report by the Drug Policy Alliance, which found “stable” traffic-fatality numbers in pot-friendly states, and also that no, legalization doesn’t seem to be contributing to any increase in kids getting high.

The tax angle is more straightforward: legal pot equals big bucks. As of last year, Colorado had taken in $500 million in weed taxes, with half going to K-12 education. Municipalities can impose their own levies, too, which is how Pueblo County ended up spending $420,000 (heh heh) on scholarships for 210 local students in 2017.

Another place legal weed appears to be leaving its footprint: the opioid crisis. An AJPH study from last fall found that in the first two years of recreational marijuana being legal in Colorado, opioid-related deaths declined 6.5 percent, reversing an upward trend going back more than a decade. On the one hand, these are (once again) preliminary numbers, but on the other they track with what we know about places where medical marijuana had already been legalized — a 2014 paper calculated a 25 percent reduction in opioid-related fatalities in states with medical marijuana laws on the books compared to those without.

Meanwhile, in a survey of 224 patients in Michigan from 2016, respondents reported a 64 percent reduction in opioid use associated with their medical-pot habit, plus “decreased number and side effects of medications, and an improved quality of life.” What all this seems to be telling us is that, where possible, pain sufferers are substituting weed for opioids, and doing better for it. Switching to another reliable painkiller that poses neither a massive addiction problem nor an OD risk — who’d have thunk, right?

Predictably, this reasoning hasn’t found a home at today’s Department of Justice, where Attorney General Jeff Sessions has adopted an unmistakably weed-hostile stance overall — in January he revoked Obama-era directives telling the feds to quit prosecuting pot offenses in states that have legalized it — and specifically scoffed at the theory that marijuana’s painkilling properties could help on the opioid front. Last winter he waved off the very idea as “almost a desperate attempt to defend the harmlessness of marijuana,” adding, “Maybe science will prove I’m wrong.” Again, early studies appear to be doing so, not that Sessions is likely to care.

A first-draft scorecard, then, for legalized weed: promising on opioids, good for state budgets, and TBD on some other issues, including traffic deaths. In other words, plenty of research left for public-policy types in pursuit of the straight dope. Such as: At two Colorado animal hospitals, cases of marijuana poisoning in dogs went up fourfold after medical pot became legal, with edibles playing a role in at least a pair of fatalities. To win the war against leaving gummies on the coffee table, we’ll surely need more data than that.

A spokesperson for the Davao City-based televangelist Apollo Quiboloy on Tuesday said he was shocked to learn that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was investigating the pastor’s religious group for possible human trafficking in Hawaii.

Lawyer Israelito Torreon was reacting to a report on Thursday by Hawaii News Now that an FBI agent who was investigating alleged aggressive fundraising by the Honolulu chapter of Quiboloy’s religious group — the Kingdom of Jesus Christ (KJC) — was also looking into the trafficking angle.

Torreon said the report was “not only surprising but shocking.”

“I just came from Hawaii and I was not told the FBI was investigating the KJC for human trafficking,” Torreon told the Inquirer by phone.

Focus on Salinas

“The Kingdom of Jesus Christ is not a human trafficking organization. It does not engage and is not guilty of such,” he said, adding that the group’s American lawyers would clarify the matter with the FBI.

“As a religious organization, members are accepted based on their free will. There is no compulsion,” he said.

The Hawaii News Now report said the FBI investigation was focused on Felina Salinas, the business manager of the local chapter of Quiboloy’s group in Honolulu.

Salinas, a US citizen, was arrested in February for allegedly trying to smuggle $350,000 out of Hawaii on the same private jet that was to have flown Quiboloy and several other Filipinos back to the Philippines.

Officers inspecting the plane found US$335,000 and A$9,000 hidden in socks in her carry-on bag, according to US prosecutors. US law requires American travelers to declare currency over $10,000. She declared only $40,000.

Quiboloy, a friend of President Rodrigo Duterte who backed his election campaign, had to take a commercial flight back to the Philippines. US authorities released his plane later in the month.

Salinas was accused of bulk cash smuggling, which carries a five-year prison term and forfeiture of the cash and property. She was released on a $25,000 bond.

The report said Salinas was also arrested in 2015 for allegedly assaulting a fellow sectarian, who claimed she was forced to raise money, which, experts said, raised the human trafficking angle. Salinas’ lawyer said the allegations had no merit.

“The next morning when she (Salinas) appeared in front of the judge, the state dismissed the charges as though they never should have been filed in the first place,” said lawyer Michael Green.

Kristina Angeles

Hawaii News Now said it had obtained documents on Salinas’ 2015 arrest that said the alleged victim and former sect member, Kristina Angeles, came to Hawaii in October 2014 on a religious worker visa.

Just days after she arrived, Angeles said she was put to work to help raise funds for the group by selling “manapua and Krispy Kreme” donuts, “rain or shine.”

Some people who travel to the United States on a religious worker’s visa have been trapped in similar situations before, the report said.

“It did indicate some of the classic signs of human trafficking. And people who have come under religious worker visas before have sometimes been connected with human trafficking,” said Hawaii attorney Clare Hanusz.

Consumers have accused the religious group’s charity, Children’s Joy Foundation, of aggressive fundraising and even misrepresentation, the report said.

Statement to police

In her statement to the police, Angeles said members were punished if they didn’t sell enough.

“We’ve been slapped or yelled at. The last time, I … received punches over my arms and legs,” she said.

When Angeles ran away in 2015, the group initially reported her missing. Then a 15-year-old female member later filed charges of sexual assault against her that her lawyer called retaliation, the report said.

Hanusz said traffickers often retaliate against victims by filing questionable criminal charges.

“This is often done in trafficking. They use threats of deportation and calling law enforcement and making things up,” she said. - With a report from Allan Nawal

The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed Solicitor General Jose Calida to make good on his promise to submit the Philippine National Police investigation reports on the killing of more than 4,000 drug suspects in President Rodrigo Duterte’s brutal war on drugs.

Voting unanimously, the 12 justices who attended the first of their annual summer full-court sessions in Baguio City rejected Calida’s appeal to rescind their Dec. 5, 2017, order requiring the submission of the official PNP reports on the killings of drug suspects during the implementation of “Oplan Tokhang.”

Submit list in 15 days

“[T]he court denied [Calida’s] motion for reconsideration of the court’s order … and directed [the] respondents to comply with the said order by submitting the required reports within a period of 15 days from notice,” the tribunal said in a statement.

The justices stood firm on their previous instruction to Calida and the PNP to provide them with documents containing the names, addresses, police operational plans and other important information on Oplan Tokhang operations from July 1, 2016, to Nov. 30, 2017.

There was no immediate comment from Calida or the PNP.

Rule of law

The Center for International Law (Centerlaw), which represents the two groups of petitioners—families of slain drug suspects—who challenged the legality of the war on drugs and sought protection from the court against the PNP, thanked the justices for their decision.

“We are fortified by this triumph of the rule of law. The Supreme Court has demonstrated with this initial order that it will perform its role as our people’s beacon and bastion of justice,” Centerlaw said in a statement.

Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio had also required Calida to submit the names of all police officers who participated in the operations and of the PNP crime scene investigators who processed the bodies and gathered evidence where the killings took place.

“The records must be there because these are supposedly legitimate drug operations,” Carpio told Calida last December before concluding oral arguments on the two petitions questioning the legality of the President’s drug war.

“I want the names, addresses and all these reports. You must know them because you are investigating them,” Carpio said.

Carpio also wanted the names, addresses, ages and gender of drug suspects killed in vigilante-style executions.

“Even the date, time and place of the killings,” Carpio said.

List of drug lords

The court also asked for a list of suspected drug lords who had been “neutralized” — killed or captured — that would also show what drugs they were accused of trading.

Calida initially agreed to comply with the tribunal’s order within 60 days but he eventually opposed it, invoking national security “after reviewing relevant laws and jurisprudence.”

“The production of documents required … involve information and other sensitive matters that in the long run will have an undeniable effect on national security,” Calida argued.

“[I]t could spell the success or failure of follow-up operations of [the] police and other law enforcement bodies, aside from endangering the lives of those on the list as well as those already in custody,” he said.

Clearance from the President

PNP Director General Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa said last year the records could not be released without clearance from the President.

The President, Dela Rosa and 10 other officials are facing a complaint for crimes against humanity in the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague over the drug war killings.

More than 4,000 people have been killed by police since Mr. Duterte launched his campaign against illegal drugs on July 1, 2016.

Thousands of others have been killed by unknown assailants in what the PNP calls deaths under investigation.

The killings continued, with seven people gunned down by police in 505 operations across the country during Holy Week.

“There was no letup in our antidrug operations during the Lenten season,” Dela Rosa told reporters on Monday.

Of the seven fatalities, four were killed in Central Luzon and one each in Southern Tagalog, South-Central Mindanao and the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, he said. - With reports from Nikko Dizon and Karlston Lapniten

Sen. Panfilo Lacson on Wednesday sought a Senate inquiry into the anomalous withholding of P58.9 million in subsistence allowances of members of the the Philippine National Police’s elite Special Action Force (SAF).

In filing Senate Resolution No. 712, Lacson said the committee on public order and dangerous drugs, which he chairs, would find out whether certain SAF officials were liable for the alleged fund scam.

The senator, a former PNP chief, was referring to the admission of former SAF Director Benjamin Lusad and budget and fiscal officer Sr. Supt. Andre Dizon that they used the P58.9-million additional subsistence allowance of some 4,000 commandos for SAF’s operational expenses.

Forefront of fight

If the report was true, Lacson said the issue threatened to “demoralize” SAF members.

“We cannot allow, yet again, another injustice to be committed against our heroes in uniform who are in the forefront of our fight against the ills of terrorism and criminality…” Lacson said in his resolution.

Records show that the commandos failed to receive their allowances from February to December 2016 and from August to December 2017.

Former SAF Director Moro Virgilio Lazo and 12 officers filed a 12-page complaint in the Ombudsman last week against Lusad, Dizon, and finance officers SPO2 Maila Bustamante and SPO1 Jck James Irica.

“I don’t know if that was the advise of their lawyers, but by returning the (P37 million) it was like saying they had the money with them (all along),” Lazo said. - CHRISTINE O. AVENDAÑO AND NIKKO DIZON